A phishing attack is where a cyber criminal attempts to try and obtain confidential sensitive information, such as, login creditentials and personal account information. 

Style and form of phishing attacks

Phishing attacks can occur in many different ways, including fraudulent emails with a general message, messages that appear to be from your contacts, text messages, phone calls or targeted high profile scams. 

An urgent tone

Phishing messages often demand that an action takes place immediately or within a short time frame. This is a common tactic to attempt for someone to make a mistake and divulge secure information.

Unexpected and unprompted

The messages will be unprompted, therefore if you werent expecting a message from the particular company or individual, be wary. 

Detecting phishing messages

Phishing emails will also often contain multiple spelling and grammatical errors, and a tone of voice that you wouldn't usually expect from the sender. 

In order to detect such messages, the sender email will often, but not always, be incorrect, or not displayed as it should be. However the email will sometimes come from a known or legitimate account, which has been compromised.